Day 8 of the Write31Days Challenge, where I'm taking a look at all the ways I've found myself unprepared for adulthood:
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“Mom, I need you to come look at something”
“Mom, can you get me something to drink?”
“Mom, can you tell us another story?”
“Mom, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you?????”
Wow.
The requests of kids never end, yes? Some of their requests are reasonable, some are straight up asinine, but whichever kind they are, it’s not so often the type of request but the mere quantity of them that can leave us feeling like we are nothing more than a handmaiden in our own home.
The other day in the car, much to my husband’s exasperation, I did not satisfy the request of our 2 1/2 year old. She persisted in her line of questioning. I gently explained to my dear husband who was at the wheel with the shrieks coming from approximately 22 inches behind his ears, that I’ve come to the realization that I’ve so long parented with no boundaries, or at the very best, poorly enforced boundaries.
So, in an attempt to play catch up, I decided that this was the line I was going to hold, in the car, with my poor husband suffering the consequences of the shrill verbal assault coming from our little girl.
It may have something to do with the fact that I’ve been reading “Boundaries With Kids” by Cloud and Townsend. Actually it probably has everything to do with that. Boy, what I wouldn’t give to go back in time and tell 25 year old Kristi that she should read that and actually LISTEN. But alas, I can’t. So now we are doing the thing that all parents do, learning as we go, and trying to course correct where we haven’t exactly steered the ship as capably as we wish we had known to do.
(photo by Negative Space from StockSnap.io)
Part of the challenge is that there is this pervasive notion both in parenting, and in Christianity that is often well intentioned but poorly understood (by me for starters!). There is this false dichotomy that exists between selflessness and boundaries. We feel that we can’t have one without the other, that we must choose to go this way or that way, when that’s not actually true. For a long time, I believed that the only way for me to truly lay down my life for another was to put myself in last place every time, fulfilling every whim and request in an effort to love well. I did not deserve personal space or even good self care. In some twisted way, that seemed like the most loving option. “Boundaries” seemed like a code word for self-indulgent parenting that required a cold heart. Recently though, it has come to my attention that boundary-less parenting will set up these little people that we are trying to raise, to be incredibly entitled, selfish adults. I do not want to send entitled people out into the world to marry a spouse, work a job, be a neighbor, be a friend. It would be heartbreak after heartbreak for both them and the people they are in relationship with.
Ultimately, there has to be a balance of sorts struck between. The challenge is like with so many things, keeping priorities in perspective. Time is fleeting, so what do we want to establish in our kids? Do I want to hold a hard line every time for the sake of training them to be responsible and self-sufficient? Or are there times I will throw all of that to the wind and just be soft on them because I’ve realized freshly, that no day is guaranteed and I care more about the relationship than I do training them in the way I think is “right”?
As you can tell, I’m still working out all the details. I’m horribly inconsistent, but I’m continually praying that God will transform our parenting failures into something magnificent, and I’m really talking positively about the benefits of therapy and have promised to pay their therapist, should the need for counseling arise in adulthood. Not even kidding. For further reading and a much better explanation of boundaries, you should read this book:
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